This year’s experimental crop features 600 Olympic hops plants growing on a 1-acre plot of the vineyard.

“We are testing the market to try to figure out if we could do a bigger production. We feel like there should be a market for made-in-Colorado beers which are brewed with grown-in-Colorado hops,” said Steve Smith, director of Colorado Correctional Industries.

If the theory pays off and an interested buyer comes forward, inmates will be busy this winter building 15-foot trellis-like contraptions out of cable and pipe to accommodate the vining plant.

Inmates also are growing Viognier, Concord, Riesling and cabernet grapes. The Riesling crop is expected to be the largest, netting 10 to 15 tons, said Jeff Seley, correctional supervisor who oversees the growing operations.

“The majority of our grapes go to the Abbey winery in Canon City and the Spring Creek Vineyard in Brookside but we also have a few customers in Denver,” Seley said.

Inmate Shaun Decker has been tending the grape and the apple crops. Decker said he would love to grow apples or grapes when he is released from prison because, “I find it fun.”

The apple crop is light because most were lost to spring frost.

“It is that location, down by the river which seems to pull the cold air off the trees. We’ve only lost one crop in the last 15 years,” Smith said.

Apples will be sold to Colon Orchards in Canon City and Happy Apple Farm in Penrose. Many will be crushed for cider.